Friday, April 17, 2009

Strong Public Support for Conscience Protection

From the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities:
New Poll Shows Strong Support for Conscience Rights in Health Care

WASHINGTON—A nationwide poll conducted on March 23-25 found that 87 percent of adults surveyed believe it is important to "make sure that healthcare professionals in America are not forced to participate in procedures and practices to which they have moral objections." Conducted by the polling company™, inc./WomanTrend on behalf of the Christian Medical Association (CMA), the survey also showed majority support even among self-identified "pro-choice" respondents for the two-month-old conscience protection regulation now at risk of being rescinded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Deirdre McQuade, spokeswoman on abortion at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), welcomed the data and urged HHS to keep the current regulation in place.

"The Obama administration has moved to rescind a vital HHS regulation protecting the conscience rights of health care providers," McQuade said, "But according to this new survey, the majority of Americans—whether 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice', male or female, Republican or Democratic—support the regulation and oppose its rescission."

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Nearly 75,000 emails were sent in support of conscience protections from the NCHLA and Freedom2Care sites. This number does not include those many concerned citizens who contacted the DHHS directly at their email address or via other websites, such as FRC's.

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